NewsNews5 August 2022

Former first racket of Ukraine Serhii Stakhovskyi in an interview with FootballHub

With the beginning of a full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation, Ukrainian professional tennis player, ex-first racket of Ukraine Serhiy Stakhovsky could not stay away, so he decided to immediately return to Ukraine, replacing a peaceful life in London with service in the territorial defense of Kyiv. As part of the 1+1 media FootballHub project, journalist Oleksandr Melnychenko spoke with Serhii about efforts to reach the Russians, the moment of greatest fear, the powerful volunteer front defended by Ukrainian football players, and the personal attitude towards Russian athletes who silently support the crimes of the Russian Federation.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2u9kNXowxg

"We woke up at 6 in the morning, my parents wrote to me that they heard very loud explosions ... I turned on the television and there was a broadcast of the landscape of Kyiv, explosions were heard everywhere. To be honest, it was a shock, a complete shock , " Serhiy shares his memories of February 24.

The athlete says that he tried to communicate with the Russians at the beginning of the war, to show them all the horrors that the Russian Federation is inflicting on our land, but it was unsuccessful. According to him, being afraid to express one's position means not having one at all.

"I spoke with Andriy Rublev (Russian tennis player - ed.) after his extreme interview, I then said: "You have to live with this. If you feel comfortable living with the fact that you don't say anything, this is your life. But understand: for everything that is happening now, one day you will have to answer for it." noted Serhiy Stakhovskyi .

In addition, Serhii recalled the moment of greatest rage and hatred towards Russians after seeing with his own eyes the atrocities committed by the Russian military in the Kyiv region. In an interview, the tennis player said:

"We went there immediately after the retreat of the Russians... After what we saw, there were such impulses that you don't want to defend yourself - you want to catch up with them... These are not people and the attitude towards them cannot be human either."

The full version of the material is available at this link . The author of the interview is Oleksandr Melnychenko.

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